Before the start of the school year in Cuba, agreed for the coming September 4 in all schools in the country, the parents of millions of students have had to leave a “fortune” in shoes, backpacks, socks, and other necessary utensils for the learning days.
Although the Cuban government boasts that this is one of the “achievements” of the system and talks about gratuities, the truth is that in the midst of current inflation, talking about new shoes, socks, backpacks or lunch boxes is already easily out of the question. the 10 thousand Cuban pesos. Parents have to go to the black market, where prices are inflated, because the state doesn’t offer them options either.
“Let them tell me: backpack for 5,000 pesos, lunch box for 3,000, long socks for 300 pesos. Tell the Minister that I don’t work. There is no one who can stand this and we are going for more”, a mother commented on social networks about the initial expenses of the upcoming school year.
Another father confirmed the expense figure and added that he was going “for more than 10,000 pesos and I still lack school supplies. Then the snacks and lunches. The situation we are experiencing is very difficult.”
High expenses for the school year in Cuba
According to these complaints from Cuban parents, sometimes the account of the expenses is lost, which is divided, for those who can afford it, between Cuban pesos and purchases in stores in Freely Convertible Currency (MLC). In the Cuban exchange market, the MLC was today, August 24, at 215 Cuban pesos for one MLC.
“To start high school: 9500 shoes, some pairs of socks at 350 and others at 500, adjusters 500 and 600 others, mechanical pencils, mines, a thermos 14 MLC and a bit, rubber bands, lycra for Physical Education. No, no, speechless and at this point uniforms don’t come in and with two that give nothing else you have to try to buy from outside that is another money,” complained a mother living in the capital.
All that money left before the start of the course, because when it starts and you need to prepare snacks, the expense will be much higher.
“Let’s add what we are going to give him for breakfast when a jug of milk is worth 500 pesos and a loaf of bread is 70 or 80. Or as a snack and not to mention lunch or dinner, if to eat a meal of rice and beans without seasoning or Nothing, we need 550 pesos. That is without seasoning or oil, ”she specified.
Despite the painful reality, the Minister of Education, Naima Ariatne Trujillo, he pointed that no current limitation in the country, “is going to limit the enthusiasm or the results of the next course.”
